The Annotated Bobblehead Justice John Jay
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John Jay, 1789-1795
As a young lawyer involved in colonial politics, John Jay served New York as a representative at the First Continental Congress in 1774, and as President of the Second Continental Congress from 1778-79.
Jay was also instrumental in drafting New York's first state constitution, ratified in 1777, and helped negotiate the Treaty of Paris of 1783, ending the Revolutionary War.
Famously, Jay wrote five essays of The Federalist Papers in 1787 and 1788, in an attempt to persuade the citizens of New York to ratify the U.S. Constitution.
In 1794, President Washington sent Jay to England as part of a diplomatic mission to improve relations between the two countries. The resulting treaty was the Jay Treaty (officially the 1794 "Treaty of Amity and Commerce"), which caused controversy at the time.
Appointed Chief Justice for a second time in 1800, Jay declined because he hated riding the circuits and did not feel the Supreme Court had been given sufficient authority. Marbury v. Madison would be decided only three years later.
1. The Debates and Proceedings of the Convention of the State of New-York: Assembled at Poughkeepsie, on the 17th June, 1788 ... New York, 1788. 
2. Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and Navigation: Between His Britannick Majesty, and the United States of America. Philadelphia, 1795. (Jay's Treaty) 
3. An Address to the People of the State of New-York: Shewing the Necessity of Making Amendments to the Constitution, Proposed for the United States, Previous to its Adoption. New York, 1788. 
4. The Federalist, on the New Constitution. New York, 1802.
